Kettlewell believes his side shot themselves in the foot as there were no excuses to their League Cup exit at the hands of Hibernian.
After a bright start to the season, Hibs were a step too far for the Staggies as Hibs sealed a place at Hampden to face Hearts as Ross County’s cup dream crashed to an end.
Kettlewell said: “To be honest, I think we’re all a bit frustrated with ourselves really because difficult one for me to sit here and say that I didn’t feel that there was loads between the sides, Hibs have won the game 3-0. I think when you play in a quarter-final tie against a team that’s a couple divisions above you and your goalkeeper makes one save in the game, and you’ve lost three goals, that probably tells the story itself.”
He added: “That we really shot ourselves in the foot, we know they’ve got good players that don’t need much encouragement. We know that they’re a good side that doesn’t need any encouragement and I just felt the nature of the goals typified what the cup tie was essentially.
The Ross County boss refused to use any excuses, insisting that they only have themselves to blame and can’t blame the referee, conditions or opponents.
The Ross County manager side: “We can’t blame referee’s, we can blame opposition, conditions, pitch, or anything. That’s on us but heard a lot of managers say that it’s evolution and a lot of new signings and all the rest of it. We’ve got 9,10,11 new signings. That is no excuse for me. I think we’ve shown that we’re a better side than what we’ve did in stages today.
Kettlewell pin-pointed his frustration to walking away empty handed and the aim was to not concede in the opening 15-20 minutes.
He said after being asked on the frustration of getting nothing: “Yeah, it is and as I say, I think if you can get 15, 20 minutes into the game and I think there was nothing in the first eight minutes as ridiculous as that sounds when you concede an early goal but if we can get 15, 20 minutes, we can start to flash your teeth defensively.
If we can show that we’re getting a handle of what they’re trying to throw at us, then nervous energy can be an amazing thing especially in cup ties, there might be moments of discontent of the Hibs supporters.”
He added: “There might be a bit of doubt in their players but I didn’t ever feel we let it get to that stage, so it is a disappointment. I feel that we’ve got more in our dressing room and I think that we’ve shown that already this season.”
Ross County need to quickly put this defeat to the side as they have a massive clash with Queen of the South on Tuesday in a game which could put the Staggies to the top of the league.